"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Iain Churches
wrote:

What do you mean by "use as you choose", Jim.

I mean that they provide the 'music' in a form like LPCM wave or Flac with
no DRM. They provide you with whatever sample rate and bitdepth you
choose.
And you are then free to use that as you choose. So might both have a
96k/24bit version to play on any computer-based system you own, or
generate
DVDs to play on your own players, or CDs, or make mp3s or aacs or whatever
*you* use for your *own* listening. An end to 'now buy another version'.

Wouldn't it be nice? Unfortunately as far as the copyright owners are
concerned their copyrights are assets to be milked. If they can make you pay
again and again for the same work why should they allow you to "use the
material as you choose"?

IMO the law of copyright is far too heavily weighted in the direction of the
copyright owners. I'm not justifying piracy (meaning the commercial
exploitation of another's work without permission) but I feel that the
present situation, where copyright owners can impose any restrictions they
like on your use of the legal copy you have bought goes too far. Have you
seen the list of limitations of use on DVDs? amongst the prohibitions is "no
lending". So you can't even legally lend a DVD you have bought to a friend.

I recently ordered a copy of an article from a 1941 issue of the JSMPTE via
the British Library. I was charged £10 for the copyright, over and above the
library fee, for a 7 page 70 year old article. It was delivered by Secure
Electronic Delivery, which means I could see it on their server, and print
it off, once, but not download it. I complained about this to the Library,
and mentioned that I had re-scanned the print-out to give myself a "soft"
copy. I received a stern rebuke from the Library's copyright dept who
pointed to the small print that said I was not allowed to store the document
in any electronic form. I'm afraid my reaction was not to apologise, but to
tell him that I thought the restriction was utterly unreasonable. Frankly,
what harm does it do to the copyright owner how I choose to store a
document?

No DRM or 'rights management'. They just get in the way of honest users,
and don't actually stop those seriously intent on piracy.

Agreed 100%. Copyright owners have long wanted the "magic bullet" that will
prevent others from copying their material, but the hackers always win. The
only long-term winners from DRM are the technology companies who convince
media companies to use their DRM technology.

David.